You see, in France at present, you will be astonished to learn, there are strikes. Obviously, nobody should spend one moment thinking about African population growth until there are no more strikes in France. When that day finally arrives, then the NYT might deign to admit you could discuss population growth in Africa and what it portends for France and the rest of Europe, but, until then, first things first!

Here’s Smith on what he calls Africa’s Scramble for Europe (a phrase perhaps invented by Ross Douthat or Noah Millman in 2015):

It’s important to note that Africa’s excessive fertility should not be a particularly difficult challenge for the world to humanely head off. Bangladesh, for instance, has gotten its population growth somewhat under control.

But a lot of Western philanthropic effort was focused on Bangladesh back in, say, the 1970s before racial attitudes had become quite so self-loathing.

The scary thing is the growing sacralization of blacks as holy beings who cannot be told to, say, leave Starbucks just because they didn’t pay.

Does concern over African overpopulation reflect “Fear of a Black Planet?”

Well, yeah, obviously, it does.

Everybody, including (and perhaps especially) blacks, should be concerned about black population growth. If the world gets on the stick and helps sub-Saharan Africa achieve what Bangladesh has achieved and thus in 2100 there are, say, only 2 billion instead of 4 billion blacks, my guess is that the 2 billion blacks would be grateful.

I wouldn’t be surprised if when Macron and Bill Gates get together, they talk about this in private. Deep down, Gates is an old-fashioned rich WASP population controller in the old Rockefeller/Bush mode. But in public, Gates has to talk about his various triple-bankshot plans for helping Africans ready themselves for climate change or via female empowerment or whatever. But how many in Africa get the message that Bill Gates, famous rich guy, would really like them to have fewer children?